Sebastian’s body filled with a hot, tingling glow. Mia filled his mind, her smoldering dark hair, her sea-green eyes, every curve of her body perfect. He could only think of his aching need to touch her, so strong that his toes actually curled inside his socks.
“Don’t you each see something you want?” Alise pulled them closer together, then circled them, counterclockwise, wrapping their arms around each other as their eyes shared a hungry gaze. “Could you ever want anyone more than you want each other?” she whispered.
Sebastian and Mia pulled closer together, until they could feel each other’s bodies through their clothes. Alise touched the backs of their heads and pressed them together until they kissed.
“Love each other,” Alise whispered.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Eight of diamonds,” Mariella said.
She sat at a table in one of the big concrete laboratories, next to a divider wall. A small hole in the wall allowed her to hold hands with the person on the other side. At the moment, that was a nineteen-year-old African-American girl. Like most of the subjects ASTRIA trucked in for this kind of testing, she was an Army soldier recently out of basic training. Mariella couldn’t see her, but she knew the girl was sitting in front of a deck of cards, slowly turning them over one at a time. Mariella had to predict the next card before the girl turned it.
A few men and women in white coats watched her from across the room, while Ward watched from the window above.
“Correct,” a lab assistant said, and she couldn’t help smiling a little. Numbers and letters were difficult to see in her visions of the future, but she always saw things more clearly the nearer they were in time. Over weeks of testing, she’d shown a ninety-one percent success rate at seeing the cards, if the other subject was female, and an eighty-seven percent success rate if she was holding hands with a male soldier instead. Interestingly, and embarrassingly, her rate of accurate predictions dropped to seventy-four percent when she was physically attracted to the soldier in question, as revealed by all her intimate heart, breathing, and brainwave data, which everyone in the room could see on the monitors.
“Ten of clubs,” she said.
“Correct.”
“Jack of spades.”
“Correct.”
“Three of hearts.”
“Correct...”
When the day’s tests were finally done, Mariella was met outside the lab by a pair of guards in body armor. Instead of escorting her back to her own residential area, though, they took her up to the administrative level and right to Ward’s office. He didn’t rise, only stared at her with his feral green eyes as she walked in.
“Did you want to see me, General Kilpatrick?” she asked Ward.
“How did it go with Seth?” he asked, though he certainly knew.
“Not good. It’s going to take more time.”
“You were supposed to win him over,” Ward said.
“In one try?” she asked.
“He’s young and stupid. You assured me it would not be a problem.”
“General Kilpatrick, sir, it’s nothing to seduce a man...but taking his heart requires time. His girlfriend is pregnant. His feelings can’t be changed in a day.”
“In this line of work, we only care about results,” Ward told her. “We don’t care how you get them. Try harder.”
“I will, sir.”
Mariella left, feeling frustrated. She understood why Seth wouldn’t want to cooperate with Ward, but it was their only real choice for now. They weren’t going to get anywhere if they stayed caged up in the cellblock. Why couldn’t he see it? Why couldn’t he at least pretend to play along? Stubborn, stupid boy.
She told herself that her real frustration didn’t come from the part of her that hoped to touch him again, the part of her that wanted to put her own feelings ahead of Jenny’s. She didn’t want to acknowledge any of those feelings, but they kept troubling her anyway.
* * *
Mia couldn’t stop kissing Sebastian, and kissing wasn’t going to be enough to satisfy her. She grabbed at his shirt and tried to push it up, then grew frustrated and ripped it open instead, little buttons raining down on the carpet at her feet. Her hands went to his bare chest and down his stomach. His skin was radiant, like gold...the entire world seemed washed in a golden fog, and all she could think about was the hungry desire that threatened to consume her if she didn’t get even closer to him, feeling his healing touch all over his skin.
His warm hands slid up the backs of her thighs, raising her dress. He lifted it up to her waist, and she eagerly held up her arms so he could take it all the way off. She reached her arms behind herself and unlatched the heavy brass hook on her bra, which was stiff and starched and concealed half her torso.